by Romi Hart
“Mister Troy,” Denise says in a giggly voice. “I really love what you do for people.”
“Do you?” I say, pouring drinks for the girls in my skyscraper bachelor pad. It’s a rental unit I use only once or twice a year, when I want to charm and/or go to bed with world leaders, dignitaries, politicians and movie stars.
“Yes, totally. I see the stuff you do, for charity, for the homeless, for the Democratic fundraisers and I think, like, oh my God…this is such a great man. You’re like the younger, sexier Bill Gates.”
“Not as much of a nerd though, right?”
“No way,” Tara says. “You’re like an alpha, man. Like Batman or Superman but in real life.”
“You’re too kind,” I say with a smile.
“You’re too kind!” Tara says. “I can’t believe we’re getting to hang out with Zander Troy in his private quarters. Don’t you usually have movie stars up here for, uh…dinner?”
“Uh, dinner?” Denise cracks up.
“I didn’t want to presume!” Tara says bashfully.
“Ah, I see.” I smile, but only halfheartedly. “The truth is, girls, I’ve grown up a lot in recent years. Just a few months ago, I was all about the sex and partying.”
“Yeah!”
“But at some point, you realize that sex without emotional connection is a meaningless experience. To a virgin it may be something new and exciting. But to us…shall we say, non-virgins…it’s an addiction. A fleeting high followed by a crashing low. To know, to fully understand, that a person only wants your body. Only wants your conversation. But your heart, your whole identity, is meaningless.”
“Awwww,” Denise says. “I’m sorry, baby. I totally get what you’re saying. My boyfriend dumped me once for this skank named Amanda. And she was fugly as shit!”
“Right.”
“And it’s like, you may THINK you want to be with Amanda, honey? But at some point, you’re going to realize that I was the only one who really cared about you. Some hoe who just wants your dick isn’t going to be the one to meet your family, and take care of your babies, and drive you to the airport and shit.”
“Yeah, it’s like that song!” Tara says. “When you cried I wiped away all of your tears and you screamed and I fought away all of your fears!”
Both girls belt out a tune and sing together, merrily, uninhibitedly, as “in the moment” as any virgin—still with the fire of life in their eyes.
“And you still haaaaaave ALL OF ME!”
I can’t help but laugh along with my cackling friends. I’m not even being facetious for once. I suppose when a man feels alone and defeated, the laughter of beautiful women is the doctor-recommended cure.
“You have a lovely voice,” I say, giving them both the “bedroom eyes” that gets me laid ninety-percent of the time. But as I begin to feel the same destructive instincts crying out, the same impulse that constantly says FEED ME, I realize that I’m the one seducing them. I’m the one avoiding conversation and fast-forwarding to sex. Maybe it’s about time I challenge myself for a change and go for something deeper.
“But seriously,” I say, shaking off my hypnotic gaze. “It’s not about the sex anymore. I find emotional connection far more interesting…far more fulfilling. Which is why I brought you both up here. I’m no longer looking for mindless sex. I really just wanted to talk to you and get to know you. I guess you could say I learned something from my last relationship.”
“Awww, that’s sweet,” Tara says. “I agree one hundred percent, Mister Troy. Sex without love, even if it’s just a little love, is boring. It’s also a generational thing. Like, millennials my age are just not into constant horn-dogging and hooking up like all you Gen-X guys. No offense.”
“None taken. Why is that?”
“I dunno. It’s like, once you realize you’re a hot chick and you can have literally any guy you want? It makes you kind of spoiled. Like, I could have sex with you but do I want to? Is this going to be better than porn? Or is this actually going to mean something for REAL, you know?”
“I understand,” I say with a firm nod.
“Yeah,” Denise says. “I mean a lot of guys are very surprised when I tell them I’m still a virgin.”
“You don’t say?” I smile crookedly, amused at the coincidence.
“Well, yeah. I mean…” She rolls her eyes. “But blowjobs and anal rimming don’t count.”
“Obviously!” Tara says.
“Yeah, everyone does blowjobs and eats ass. But that’s not real sex.”
“Ah,” I say with a nod.
“But aside from that, no trespassing in the pussy! Virgin all the way, baby. Excuse my French.”
“The point is, Mister Troy,” Tara continues, “I admire a man who WANTS more than just sex. It shows he really likes you, you know?”
“And how about me?” I ask with a smile, for the first time in my life, actually pushing away images of Maya’s smiling face. “Do you sense any emotional connection with me? Or are you just chasing my celebrity dick?”
The girls laugh. I actually start to have a good time…and Maya’s smile begins to fade. Maybe time heals all relationship wounds…especially if you learn something from all that brutal emotional trauma.
“I really DO like you!” Tara says. “But no, I don’t care about celebrity and money and all that shit.”
“Nope,” Denise says. “Didn’t even know who you were in the bar, to be honest. Just liked your haircut.”
“Yeah!” Tara laughs. “We don’t follow like, business and other boring shit. Besides, just because you’re a zillionaire doesn’t mean you have a million followers on Instagram or anything actually important. I mean, come on…no one’s that impressed with money anymore, dude. No offense.”
I laugh and nod in agreement. “Well, that’s a start. So we’re just guys and girls talking as individuals. No phony bullshit. No pretenses. No one’s using anyone.”
“Exactly!”
“Dude, if I were going to use you it would be for your hot bod. Not for your big-ass celebrity name.”
“Yeah, all that’s so 2010. I don’t even watch the Kardashians anymore. It’s like, enough already. Use all that money to grow some talent, bitch.”
“Well…I sure had a lot of fun tonight, girls,” I say peacefully. “You really helped me to laugh again.”
“We had fun too!” Denise says. “Do you want to go skiing with us next week?”
“Skiing?” I ask in disbelief.
“Dude, don’t tell me you just sit around in this palace steepling like Montgomery Burns. Get the fuck out of the house and live a little!”
I laugh along with them, amused at the visual of me, Zander Troy, actually skiing with some random college girls. “Well…which one of you would I be dating if I agreed to a second date?”
“Maybe you don’t have to choose,” Denise says, this time without her goofy smile. This time she gives me the bedroom eyes, along with Tara, sending a pleasant ripple of oxytocin through my spine.
“It’s 2018,” Tara says. “Polyamorous relationships are totally a thing. Actually, two of my friends are in threesome marriages. And they’ve never been happier.”
“Huh…you don’t say.” Well, getting over someone is never easy. But maybe it helps to stop taking “the rules” so seriously.
Chapter 9
Maya
I haven’t heard from Zander in a long while. I have mixed emotions on letting go of someone so powerful in my life and so attune to what I’m feeling. I intentionally ignored his texts and his calls, but not because I really believed anything I said to him.
I know he loves me. And I know part of me loves him. It’s not because he has money or because he’s confident or a sex god. What keeps us apart is that he refuses to become emotionally vulnerable! He has no concept of what it means to trust somebody and to give of himself. It’s all performance with him, it’s his raging narcissism that drives every decision he makes.
I’ve talked
to my parents about our troubled relationship. They seem to have this strange idea that I’m rejecting Zander because he’s not “Catholic” enough. I don’t argue them. But Jesus, talk about a failure to communicate.
“Maya, we understand. And we’ve talked to Zander, too. Zander needs someone more like him and you need someone more like you.”
“Maybe you’re right, Mom…”
“You need another man who has a good heart. And who’s not so worldly wise.”
“Well…”
“And another virgin like you are! Zander is the type of guy who might try to steal your virginity!”
I give Mom a look and shake off my incoming headache. “You’re right, mom. Totally.”
I know I can’t talk to Zander about this. Zander is completely self-absorbed and will make the conversation all about him. But this isn’t ABOUT him, I wish I could make him understand that. Ignoring him is the only option. I just need him to go away, to let me be. To let someone ELSE talk to me, someone else besides him.
And yet my list of cool people who I can actually talk to—that is, people whom I haven’t had sex with, and who don’t just lecture me about God—is surprisingly empty. I regret that I slept with Renee and Zander and can no longer consider either of them an impartial listener. I even tried to do the unthinkable and phone Billy. But he refuses to pick up. I guess Billy really is a man of his word. He kept his promise to Zander, took his money and ran.
I suppose I could reach out to one of my old high school friends, or a friend of a friend from church. But dammit, I really don’t have anything in common with those people anymore. They think they know me…but they only know one side of me, one 2D version of me that doesn’t even exist anymore. They have no idea who the present me is!
Maybe what I need is to talk to someone completely oblivious of my life and what I “ought” to be doing. Someone whose interest in me is minimal, completely ignorant, and emotionally bereft to the point where he really doesn’t care about my existence one way or the other—or anything outside of my womanhood.
Speaking, of course, of Antonio, a man who sort of knows me…in that we both fucked madly in a spontaneous threesome in a VIP room. Ironically, this man who only knows how supple my breasts are and just how wet I get when two big guys manhandle my vagina, IS the only man who best understands the Maya of the Present.
Or at least he understands her as well as I do.
I wait patiently at the bar as I watch Antonio hassling the bartender and talking frantically on the phone. He hasn’t seen me yet, but I like the idea of just observing him. We shared something intimate together, something that will never happen again. A “you had to be there” moment that was a small miracle. I don’t regret it…but I can’t quite reconcile what happened and what it means. To know that I once fucked somebody who hardly remembers me now is an erotic thrill. A tingling sensation comes over me. I know his secrets. I know how he loves. I know his weakness, his unspeakable preferences.
Oh yes, and I also know he loves money. Like everyone else who Zander Troy controls, manipulates, and “loves”.
“I told you I wanted that marble at the price they listed!” he yells to his cell phone. What a surprise…the bastard lost his strong Italian accent. Now he talks just like any Italian buffoon born in the states. “No, you tell him I’m the client! I’m the one at his doorstep. We made a deal, Ricky!”
“Hey,” I say, finding his distracted eyes.
“Hey,” he says rudely, not even recognizing me. “I can’t go now, Ricky. I’m needed here at the bar. I swear to God, I will kill you if I don’t get that shipment in by tomorrow evening. Everything is riding on this…this…”
He stares at my tits popping out of my sexy, low-neckline plunge dress. And suddenly he remembers Did I suck on those nipples?
“Oh,” he says, finally meeting my eyes and remembering our unspeakable affair. “Gotta call you back.” He hangs up the phone and smiles…awkwardly.
“What happened to your accent, Tony?”
“Uhhhhh…” He starts faking it again. “I am a so happy to see you!”
“Oh, cut the shit. Just tell me. Why the accent? Was that Zander’s idea?”
“Uhh…Zander said every virgin fools around with a foreign guy at some point in her life. Something about how all men are the same but some have funnier voices than others. And girls like funny voices. I don’t know, it was his idea. For as much money as he paid me, I would have pretended to be Sophia Loren.”
“I know everything now. How my boyfriend set you up, paid you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t even realize—you’re the owner of this bar, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. What can I say, I’m a working man. We’re all bitches for guys like Zander.”
“So I’ve heard. Did you at least enjoy it? What we did together?”
“Yes,” he says reluctantly.
“Gee, don’t over-flatter me, Tony. I hate nice guys, ya know.”
“I’m sorry! Uh...yes, I enjoyed it,” he says nervously. “But having a threesome with my highest paying client’s girlfriend…is…well, slightly more nerve-racking than performing a live sex show. If you get my drift.”
“Ah, I see. Well, at least you didn’t have any erectile dysfunction problems. I mean, look on the bright side.”
“Well yes, I’m grateful for that!” He laughs nervously.
“Can we talk somewhere private?”
“I—?”
“Not about sex. Don’t worry. I’m not here to force sex on you and make your life sooo very uncomfortable.”
“But I’m assuming it’s about Zander.”
“Don’t we all get it by now? The whole world revolves around Zander Troy.”
Tony nervously paces around the VIP room holding a drink—the same room where he stuffed his cock into my mouth and defiled my once-virginal tits. I can’t wipe the grin off my face, which only unnerves the poor guy, who just tries to make his customers very happy.
“Uh…this is awkward.” He points to the pool table…
“Tony, you talking about it only makes it more awkward.”
“Right. Moving on. Can I pour you a drink?”
“No. Why do I feel like the mobster’s girlfriend whenever I talk to Zander’s people?”
“Zander isn’t a violent man. But he has more money than he knows what to do with. And certain people around him, well…let’s just say they have no problems with violence.”
“Really?”
“I like Zander!” he assures me. “I’m just saying…I hope he continues to walk in the opposite path of his father. Then maybe he’ll leave the world in better shape than he found it.”
“Yeah, I kind of get the feeling that his father was a prick. But what can you do. Every generation is only slightly better than the last one.”
“How is Zander?”
“I don’t know,” I say reluctantly.
“You haven’t talked to him since…”
“Not really. I mean…I basically told him it’s over.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Am I right or am I wrong?”
Tony shakes his head.
“Just be honest, Tony.”
“Honestly, I don’t care. It’s your life.”
I nod…until Tony finally relaxes a bit and speaks from the heart.
“I mean, you want to be in a relationship where the guy calls all the shots? Where he must know where you are at all times? Where he’s traveling halfway across the world and you can only pray he’s not cheating on you with some hot stewardess? I wouldn’t marry the guy. What else you want to know?”
“I guess stupid questions…”
“Right!”
“I’m sorry for troubling you, Tony. And yes, it really is sad that you’re the closest thing to a platonic friend I have right now. Which isn’t saying much. I used to talk to a priest. But he just tells me that I’m no longer ‘innocent’ now.”
“Oh?”<
br />
“Yeah, the conversation went something like…”
“Bless me, Father, for I’ve sinned.”
“Now what did you do?”
“Umm…I probably shouldn’t say.”
“Why are you in confession then?”
“It’s not about my sin. It’s about the emptiness in my life. I feel like I can’t make the right decision…and like I don’t have anyone to confide in.”
“Confide in me. Tell me what dirty things you did.”
“Father? I don’t think that’s appropriate conversation!”
“I’m a priest! And I know you’ve done something bad, I can sense it in your voice. God knows.”
“How dare you! I’m not telling you my private life! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Father! And in the house of God! What’s the matter with you!”
“Huh,” Antonio says. “Well that is kind of what he does, listen to confessions.”
“Yeah, but ew? Just creepy.”
“Okay, go on.”
“Anyway, my parents are also out of touch with reality. They really don’t understand the real me. And it kind of sucks. That they see me as the same innocent little girl…and part of me, you know, doesn’t want to disappoint them. Part of me still feels that way, you know?”
“Right…”
“And of course, talking to my friend Renee is just…so weird and I don’t even want to get into all that. My other friend Billy won’t return my calls. All I wanted…”
I tear up and cough my way through the next sentence, stopping myself from crying.
“All I wanted was to not be alone on Valentine’s Day.”
“Ah kid,” he mumbles, motioning me to sit back down and listen. “I don’t want to get in between you and Zander’s business. But since you’re asking me…all I can think to ask is, what are you running from? You say you’re running away from Zander but why?”
“Because I’m a fucking idiot, that’s why!” I cry silently, holding my head.
Tony stares at me in confusion until I start patting my stomach giving him the message.